'MoBay Classic a big boost for local basketball'

Paulton Gordon, president of the Jamaica Basketball Association (JaBA), says his administration stands to benefit significantly from hosting this year's second staging of the Jamaica Basketball Classic, which involves eight collegiate teams from the United States.

The tournament will be held at the Montego Bay Convention Centre from November 16-18. The teams down to take part are Georgetown University, University of South Florida, Ohio University, Campbell University, Central Connecticut State University, Austin Peay University, Florida A&M and Loyola Marymount University.

Gordon told The Gleaner that his association is very delighted to be staging the event along with the Jamaica Tourist Board because it will play a vital role in the development of the sport.

"We are quite happy that there is a second staging of this event because it will only grow from here," said Gordon.

"We are also elated because this is a step in the right direction in trying to popularise our sport and trying to get support from the North American market," he said.

"We are trying to get some of the schools that play in the ISSA competitions to attend some of the games and to expose them to this kind of basketball and see how it is managed," Gordon said.

The JaBA boss added that his association has been in dialogue with the organisers of the competition to see how best they can offer their assistance in helping with the development of the sport in Jamaica.

"We have had discussions with the organisers and there are three basic areas that we want to ensure that there is a benefit to Jamaica. We want internship for our coaches, we want expanded clinics and access to equipment so that we can build our equipment supplies across all the conferences," he said.

"They seem quite positive and we are working to see how best we can accomplish these things," Gordon pointed out.